Chapter 1355: Amanda"s Plan and Batman"s Plan
They were all secret operatives under the Department of Defense, although Luke didn"t know which divisions they were from.
Killing these people would be the same as Batman officially declaring war on the U.S. Department of Defense and the four main military forces.
Luke didn"t plan to have Batman become a thorn in their side. In any case, he still had many other ident.i.ties that could take that role.
This high-level Joint Research Unit was quite interesting.
In the beginning, it was similar to Sentinel Services. It mainly researched superpowers and tried to make them available to the American government.
This concept was actually no different from all super soldier projects; it was just the way the soldiers were boosted that was different.
But after Amanda Waller took office in recent years, she had been trying to add another element to it — to create a ready-made superhuman team for America"s use.
This sort of ready-made personnel would naturally have differing levels of trust compared with trained subordinates.
Amanda wasn"t an idiot, but a cunning and ruthless politician.
Her plan was to use lethal methods to control superhumans, especially criminals with superpowers, and have them complete missions.
For criminals with superpowers, she didn"t need to pay them. At most, their prison environment could be improved and they could be allowed visits from relatives as a reward.
Her heart wouldn"t ache if they died, and she could squeeze as much as she could out of them while they were alive; they couldn"t be any more perfect "tools."
Her philosophy was that since these people only thought about using their superpowers to commit crimes, then there was no need to care about their human rights.
Amanda"s idea hadn"t received much support. After all, everybody had their own plans when it came to researching superpowers.
How would they make money?
If a new "product" appeared in the future, the Department of Defense and the military would be able to procure a batch, and the various parties involved would pocket a share of the benefits.
Amanda"s idea wasn"t bad, but no one could make a quick buck off of it.
In fact, the people who supported Amanda also wanted to use these criminals to do the "dirty work" so that they could keep their own hands "clean."
Compared with those idiots who were stupid enough to use their superpowers to rob banks or even electrical appliance stores, these bigshots were the best at making use of "waste."
Dealing with drug rings and gang figures abroad carried no risk to the bigshots, the operatives could be disposed of at any time, and it wasn"t hard to pick up a quick buck.
However, there were very few people who would think of this; most of them preferred to use official government funding since that was within legal bounds.
Amanda had only done a few small-scale experiments, and her plan hadn"t received much support.
After Batman"s appearance and the rise of criminals with superpowers in L.A. and New York, Amanda"s plan was finally remembered by many bigshots.
It was no longer about getting rich, but about America"s national security.
However much the people at the bottom loved Batman was however wary the higher-ups were of this Dark Knight.
The ma.s.ses abided by the law in order to live peacefully, while these mid- and high-level bigshots used countless illegal and violent means to obtain benefits.
But the Dark Knight spoke of "justice," not the law.
As long as someone was caught committing a crime, Batman would p.r.o.nounce judgment and immediately carry it out, whether it was broken bones for a minor crime or paralysis for a major one.
Batman had yet to provoke these bigshots, but they already felt a sense of crisis.
They didn"t need Batman to feel that they were safe; they had to feel it themselves.
Only when they were safe would America be safe, so this was a matter of national security and had to be taken seriously.
Given this new development, Amanda"s super squad project had developed rapidly in the last year.
Currently, the Joint Advanced Research Unit had set up two semi-complete superhuman teams which had already carried out multiple missions. They were in good shape.
That was why Flegg felt that Amanda had become arrogant recently. She was sounding out Batman because she definitely wanted to use him as a stepping stone.
I caught Batman. See how powerful my super squad is! That was probably what Amanda was thinking.
To put it nicely, Amanda had a strong resolve and tough methods.
To put it bluntly, she was ruthless and unscrupulous.
She was targeting Batman because Batman had a weakness — he didn"t kill people, and most of the time, he only targeted criminals.
Secondly, Batman, who had been the focus of much research, was acknowledged to not have any superpowers since he had never demonstrated any.
Given Batman"s style, he wouldn"t deliberately hide his strength when saving people. Thus, he was just a normal human.
This made Amanda believe that if it hadn"t been for another mysterious person stepping in, the Enchantress would"ve been able to kill both Batman and Iron Man on the spot during the New York explosions.
This proved that Batman wasn"t that strong, and that her plan was effective.
Recalling what Flegg had told him, Luke couldn"t help but smile. Depicting himself as "weak" was indeed a great weapon for luring out the enemy.
These people all felt that Batman"s "sense of justice" was quite stupid, and he wasn"t that strong, which was why he dared to jump out and cause trouble.
Luke"s earlier thinking had been right.
As a spiritual pillar, what was the point of having such strong combat ability? Those bigshots would never have anything to fear from a Dark Knight with a bottom line and a "heart of justice."
Batman wasn"t a madman. He abided by certain rules and didn"t break them, while these bigshots would play at "virtuous men constrained by the law."
This was what the authorities liked to do the most.
But who said that Batman couldn"t get revenge? Luke said, "Alfred, how many gangs in New York have informants from the Joint Advanced Research Unit?"
Alfred said, "Master, there are 35 that sell information on superhumans to them, and 11 are directly controlled by the research unit."
Luke said, "Draw up a plan. I"ll wipe out the 11 gangs in one night. As for the rest… I"ll deal with them the next day."
Alfred: "Yes, sir."
Luke couldn"t help but chuckle.
If people like Flegg were Amanda"s hands and feet, then these gangs were Amanda"s eyes.
Without eyes, it would be very difficult for Amanda to gather intelligence in New York, especially from underground sources.
Francis had found Wade through this channel when he was looking for test subjects.
Shady business like that definitely couldn"t be acquired through official channels.
Active gangs with frequent and erratic movements ultimately made the best scapegoats.
As long as they made enough money, drug gangs would do anything.
The whole world now knew that New York was Batman"s new home ground.
After the Joint Research Unit tried to screw him over, it made sense for Batman to retaliate by cracking down on the gangs.
After all, those guys were criminals! Batman beating up bad guys was a common thing.